5
(a good-time girl)
That made Abra think of the three sex maniacs by the pool, smooching and gobbling to oldtime disco music. Uck. Some people had very strange ideas of what was a good time.
“Abra?” That was Mrs. Deane. “It’s your turn, honey.”
If she had to keep this up for long, she’d have a nervous breakdown. It would have been so much easier at home, by herself. She had even floated the idea to her father, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Not even with Mr. Freeman watching over her.
She used a U on the board to make POUND.
“Thanks, Abba-Doofus, I was going there,” Emma said. She turned the board and began to study it with beady-eyed final-exam concentration that would go on for another five minutes, at least. Maybe even ten. Then she would make something totally lame, like RAP or PAD.
Abra returned to the Riv. What her father was saying was sort of interesting, although she knew more about it than he thought she did.
(Abby? Are you)
6
“Abby? Are you listening?”
“Sure,” Dan said. I just had to take a little time-out to play a word. “This is interesting.”
“Anyway, Momo was living in Manhattan at that time, and when Alessandra came to see her that June, she was pregnant.”
“Pregnant with Mom?”
“That’s right, Abba-Doo.”
“So Mom was born out of wedlock?”
Total surprise, and maybe the tiniest bit overdone. Dan, in the peculiar position of both participating and eavesdropping on the discussion, now realized something he found touching and sweetly comic: Abra knew perfectly well that her mother was illegitimate. Lucy had told her the year before. What Abra was doing now, strange but true, was protecting her father’s innocence.
“That’s right, honey. But it’s no crime. Sometimes people get . . . I don’t know . . . confused. Family trees can grow strange branches, and there’s no reason for you not to know that.”
“Gramma Sandy died a couple of months after Mom was born, right? In a car wreck.”
“That’s right. Momo was babysitting Lucy for the afternoon, and ended up raising her. That’s the reason they’re so close, and why Momo getting old and sick has been so hard on your mom.”
“Who was the man who got Gramma Sandy pregnant? Did she ever say?”
“Tell you what,” Dave said, “that’s an interesting question. If Alessandra ever told, Momo kept it to herself.” He pointed ahead, at the lane cutting through the woods. “Look, honey, almost there!”
They were passing a sign reading CLOUD GAP PICNIC AREA, 2 MI.
7
Crow’s party made a brief stop in Anniston to gas up the Winnebago, but on lower Main Street, at least a mile from Richland Court. As they left town—Snake now at the wheel and an epic called Swinging Sorority Sisters on the DVD player—Barry called Jimmy Numbers to his bed.
“You guys got to step it up a notch,” Barry said. “They’re almost there. It’s a place called Cloud Gap. Did I tell you that?”
“Yeah, you did.” Jimmy almost patted Barry’s hand, then thought better of it.
“They’ll be spreading their picnic in no time. That’s when you should take them, while they’re sat down and eating.”
“We’ll get it done,” Jimmy promised. “And in time to twist enough steam out of her to help you. Rose can’t object to that.”
“She never would,” Barry agreed, “but it’s too late for me. Maybe not for you, though.”
“Huh?”
“Look at your arms.”
Jimmy did, and saw the first spots blooming on the soft white skin below his elbows. Red death. His mouth went dry at the sight of them.
“Oh Christ, here I go,” Barry moaned, and suddenly his clothes were collapsing in on a body that was no longer there. Jimmy saw him swallow . . . and then his throat was gone.
“Move,” Nut said. “Let me at him.”
“Yeah? What are you going to do? He’s cooked.”
Jimmy went up front and dropped into the passenger seat, which Crow had vacated. “Take Route 14-A around Frazier,” he said. “That’s quicker than going through the downtown. You’ll connect with the Saco River Road—”
Snake tapped the GPS. “I got all that programmed. You think I’m blind or just stupid?”
Jimmy barely heard her. All he knew was that he could not die. He was too young to die, especially with all the incredible computer developments just over the horizon. And the thought of cycling, the crushing pain every time he came back . . .
No. No. Absolutely not. Impossible.
Late-afternoon light slanted in through the ’Bago’s big front windows. Beautiful autumn sunlight. Fall was Jimmy’s favorite season, and he intended to still be alive and traveling with the True Knot when it came around again. And again. And again. Luckily, he was with the right bunch to get this done. Crow Daddy was brave, resourceful, and cunning. The True had been in tough spots before. He would bring them through this one.
“Watch for the sign pointing to the Cloud Gap picnic area. Don’t miss it. Barry says they’re almost there.”
“Jimmy, you’re giving me a headache,” Snake said. “Go sit down. We’ll be there in an hour, maybe less.”
“Goose it,” Jimmy Numbers said.
Snakebite Andi grinned and did so.
They were just turning onto the Saco River Road when Barry the Chink cycled out, leaving only his clothes. They were still warm from the fever that had baked him.
8
(Barry’s dead)
There was no horror in this thought when it reached Dan. Nor even an ounce of compassion. Only satisfaction. Abra Stone might look like an ordinary American girl, prettier than some and brighter than most, but when you got below the surface—and not that far below, either—there was a young Viking woman with a fierce and bloodthirsty soul. Dan thought it was a shame that she’d never had brothers and sisters. She would have protected them with her life.
Dan dropped the Riv into its lowest gear as the train came out of the deep woods and ran along a fenced drop. Below them, the Saco shone bright gold in the declining sun. The woods, sloping steeply down to the water on both sides, were a bonfire of orange, red, yellow, and purple. Above them, the puffy clouds drifting by seemed almost close enough to touch.
He pulled up to the sign reading CLOUD GAP STATION in a chuff of airbrakes, then turned the diesel off. For a moment he had no idea what to say, but Abra said it for him, using his mouth. “Thanks for letting me drive, Daddy. Now let’s have our plunder.” In the Deane rec room, Abra had just made this word. “Our picnic, I mean.”
“I can’t believe you’re hungry after all you ate on the train,” Dave teased.
“I am, though. Aren’t you glad I’m not anorexic?”
“Yes,” Dave said. “Actually, I am.”
Dan saw John Dalton from the corner of his eye, crossing the picnic area clearing, head down, feet noiseless on the thick pine duff. He was carrying a pistol in one hand and Billy Freeman’s rifle in the other. Trees bordered a parking lot for motor traffic; after a single look back, John disappeared into them. During summer, the little lot and all the picnic tables would have been full. On this weekday afternoon in late September, Cloud Gap was dead empty except for them.
Dave looked at Dan. Dan nodded. Abra’s father—an agnostic by inclination but a Catholic by association—made the sign of the cross in the air and then followed John into the woods.
“It’s so beautiful here, Daddy,” Dan said. His invisible passenger was now talking to Hoppy, because Hoppy was the only one left. Dan set the lumpy, balding, one-eyed rabbit on one of the picnic tables, then went back to the first passenger car for the wicker picnic basket. “That’s okay,” he said to the empty clearing, “I can get it, Dad.”
9
In the Deanes’ rec room, Abra pushed back her chair and stood up. “I have to go to the bathroom again. I feel sick to my stomach. And after that, I think I better go home.”
Emma rolled her eyes, but Mrs. Deane was all sympathy. “Oh, honey, is it your you-know?”
“Yes, and it’s pretty bad.”
“Do you have the things you need?”
“In my backpack. I’ll be fine. Excuse me.”
“That’s right,” Emma said, “quit while you’re winning.”
“Em-ma!” her mother cried.
“That’s okay, Mrs. Deane. She beat me at HORSE.” Abra went up the stairs, one hand pressed to her stomach in a way she hoped didn’t look too fakey. She glanced outside again, saw Mr. Freeman’s truck, but didn’t bother with the thumbs-up this time. Once in the bathroom, she locked the door and sat down on the closed toilet lid. It was such a relief to be done juggling so many different selves. Barry was dead; Emma and her mom were downstairs; now it was just the Abra in this bathroom and the Abra at Cloud Gap. She closed her eyes.
(Dan)
(I’m here)
(you don’t have to pretend to be me anymore)
She felt his relief, and smiled. Uncle Dan had tried hard, but he wasn’t cut out to be a chick.
A light, tentative knock at the door. “Girlfriend?” Emma. “You all right? I’m sorry if I was mean.”
“I’m okay, but I’m going to go home and take a Motrin and lie down.”
“I thought you were going to stay the night.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Isn’t your dad gone?”
“I’ll lock the doors until he gets back.”
“Well . . . want me to walk with you?”
“That’s okay.”
She wanted to be alone so she could cheer when Dan and her father and Dr. John took those things out. They would, too. Now that Barry was dead, the others were blind. Nothing could go wrong.
10
There was no breeze to rattle the brittle leaves, and with the Riv shut down, the picnic area at Cloud Gap was very quiet. There was only the muted conversation of the river below, the squall of a crow, and the sound of an approaching engine. Them. The ones the hat woman had sent. Rose. Dan flipped up one side of the wicker basket, reached in, and gripped the Glock .22 Billy had provided him with—from what source Dan didn’t know or care. What he cared about was that it could fire fifteen rounds without reloading, and if fifteen rounds weren’t enough, he was in a world of hurt. A ghost memory of his father came, Jack Torrance smiling his charming, crooked grin and saying, If that don’t work, I don’t know what to tellya. Dan looked at Abra’s old stuffed toy.
“Ready, Hoppy? I hope so. I hope we both are.”